A pro-Israel organisation and political donations vehicle headlined by shadow cyber security minister James Paterson has had its website overtaken by ads for steroids, impotence pills and spyware for a year without his knowledge.
The staunchly hawkish senator is co-patron and founder of the “network for Liberal Party members, friends and allies who support Israel”, an official fundraising entity that has tipped $30,000 into campaign coffers.
But after an investigation by The New Daily revealed its website was hosting thousands of pages touting illegal or dubious products, the website was taken down on Wednesday.
Senior Liberals have referred the case to the Cyber Security Centre, an intelligence agency which was given vast new monitoring powers last year after lobbying from, among others, Mr Paterson.
Senator Paterson said, through a spokesman, he was never responsible for administering the Liberal Friends of Israel website.
An upper house colleague made a statement on behalf of the organisation, saying it would now wait for a response from investigators.
“Thank you for bringing this to our attention,” the statement read.
“We are taking steps urgently to fix the issue and investigate as this is not what the website is for.”
Tweet from @SenPaterson
Senator Paterson, the youngest ever Liberal senator, became prominent with strident warnings about a China threat last year when seeking to raise questions about some MPs’ character including with an accusation that one had argued in favour of defence cooperation with the People’s Liberation Army.
But it appears foreign interference was closer than even he suspected.
Dubious content
More than 2900 pages of dubious content was published, and often under a banner featuring Senator Paterson – most of which did not appear to have been intentional placements.
They included endorsements of graphic pornography, cryptocurrency schemes, apparently non–prescription use of steroids and an erotic, Russian version of poker.
Pages including a gateway for credit card payments (adult membership was priced at $120) were accessible until a little more than an hour after queries were sent to the senator.
Archives suggest the website became over-run in March last year, not long after Senator Paterson assumed the position as chairman of Parliament’s Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (a body described unfailingly by press gallery reporters as “powerful”).
In that role, he recommended laws giving the government unprecedented powers to monitor the internet to counter foreign threats.
As the Coalition’s spokesman on cyber security Senator Paterson has recently made critical contributions to public debate on breaches at Medibank and Optus.
The website’s content management system appears to have been poorly structured and included no defences to takeover at all, with gaps becoming wider in recent years.
Senator Paterson described the government’s recent increase of fines for privacy breaches from $2 million to $50 million as “too little, too late”.
The Liberal Friends of Israel website was established in 2018.
In September 2021 it gave more than $5000 to the Victorian division of the Liberal Party, electoral commission records show, after making payments of just over $19,000 in its first year.
Co-patron and state MP David Southwick did not return a request for comment nor did the association treasurer responsible for its financial disclosures.
Tim Wilson did not comment, but the former MP’s involvement with the organisation he had previously led is understood to have long since ceased.
The website was first registered by another Liberal senator, David Van, who was then working as a political operative.
‘Fallen into disuse’
Senator Van issued a statement on the group’s behalf on Wednesday, and said the website had fallen into disuse.
“The website was being managed by a staff member who left some time ago and it was not handed over properly,” the statement said.
“The Liberal Friends of Israel does not condone any of what has been put on the website by an outside party.”
Senator Van’s statement did not say if the group could be confident that all donors’ financial information had been kept safe or what procedures it would follow to notify them of a seeming loss of control over the site’s content.
A recent turn in federal (and state) politics has given Israel new prominence.
Senator Paterson led the security committee in recommending the government list Hezbollah in its entirety as a terrorist organisation.
